12 horses running loose on roadway Lodi, OH (US)Incident Date: Wednesday, May 1, 2002 County: Medina
Disposition: Alleged
Alleged: Patricia Brooks
In May of 2002, the Medina County Sheriff's office received a frantic phone call. A dozen horses were on the loose on Columbia Road, the caller said. They were stampeding like buffalo, their manes flowing behind them like kite tails. Desperate, the police called Penny Blake. Blake rushed to the scene. Using feed and lasso, she herded the horses into an open pasture. It took her an hour and a half, but she finally got the whole lot settled. Then she went looking for their owner. That's when she learned from neighbors that Patty Brooks was back.
Blake headed to Brooks' new farm, set on a few acres of grass behind an alpaca farm on Columbia Road. From the street, it was impossible to tell that beyond the fences, horses grazed and trotted in the pastures. But as she pulled up to the horse barn, she saw the outline of a poorly kept animal stall. The gates were sagging like an old widower's shoulders; the doors needed painting and were ajar. But what upset Blake the most were the stalls. There were five of them, each no bigger than an office cubicle. And it appeared that Brooks was keeping the horses bunked two to a stall.
Blake ordered Brooks to fix up her barn, and prosecutors charged the breeder with "animals at large" - a misdemeanor in which animals are allowed to run loose.
But the horses Blake had seen weren't sick or malnourished. She couldn't legally take them from Brooks - not right then, anyway. And when Blake came back five days later to check on the farm, Brooks was gone. So were the animals. References |